Comment by komali2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by komali2 | Hacker News Reader

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> I wish people would grow thicker skins and get more emotionally mature, and be able to tolerate harsh words without taking them personally

This is the "rock polisher" thesis of life, which I've also called the "bully thesis." I grew up swapping between different parts of America that approached "how to generate a functional adult" differentally. Some places, it was "love and care for your fellow man. Work together to make a better world." Other places it was "we believe the world is harsh and unforgiving, therefore we're gonna beat you to get you ready for it."

What I've learned is that society is exactly how you make it. If you allow kids to bully and beat the shit out of each other in the playground, you're gonna get a society of Biggest Fist Wins. If you go the other direction, you'll get one where people work together and work to see the best in each other.

Once you've been raised one way though, the other way seems a weakness, so I generally don't have hope of doing anything other than preach to the choir.

In your example - what's the point of thicker skin if people simply don't say mean things to each other?

>In your example - what's the point of thicker skin if people simply don't say mean things to each other?

You can never control other people's behavior, only your own. Learning to deal with mean comments is a valuable skill.

> You can never control other people's behavior

This is another way to say

> we believe the world is harsh and unforgiving

You seem to have internalized this perspective completely.

Post-scarcity is, at best, a distant fantasy.

Ergo, sufficient resources to forgive everyone, do not exist.

Ergo, it is best for any person to not expect forgiveness.

It's not a perspective; it logically follows from reality.

First, you are intentionally limiting the scope of my claim. "Unforgiving" is just a synonym of "harsh", "challenging" or "adversarial", not about actual person forgiving someone.

Second, your logical proof is wrong. The existence of resource scarcity in the global scale does not mean the global resource scarcity, some places may have enough resources.

> First, you are intentionally limiting the scope of my claim. "Unforgiving" is just a synonym of "harsh", "challenging" or "adversarial", not about actual person forgiving someone.

I wasn't being fully literal, either: when someone makes enough mistakes in life to deplete their private resources, they seek "forgiveness" in either handouts or in finding some new unusual opportunity to ply. It is, at worst, narrow terminology.

> Second, your logical proof is wrong. The existence of resource scarcity in the global scale does not mean the global resource scarcity, some places may have enough resources.

Such local situations are self-removing; if a good is locally in such sharp surplus as to be post-scarce, then the only logical action is to export it to somewhere else, as such post-scarcity is such an extreme condition that the price differential will certainly outweigh almost any terrestrial transit costs.

(Notable exception: one disadvantage of the Soviet economy was that it sometimes required supplies be post-scarce in their own production facilities or warehouses but ultra-scarce elsewhere.)

My solution to dealing with people of the "rock polisher" mindset is that I politely refuse to participate in any sort of society with them, professional or private. Would this be a valid method for dealing with these sorts of people?

Okay, but what if you are the most pleasant and caring cab company in the world, and suddenly a giant, well-funded bully comes into the scene and starts competing with you? Do you just fold and go into a different business("refuse to participate in any sort of society with them"?)

How do you plan to educate everyone to be cooperative when you need to disengage whenever you meet bullies? You will need a closed-off society that ostracizes its members when they stray from the golden path.

At least your solution doesn't require global dominance and authoritarianism to bring everyone in line, which is a big plus.

I don't understand your example - does Lyft ever engage with Uber? Perhaps I wasn't clear - existing next to each other is ok in my theory.

My theory also doesn't require society adoption. It's simply how I deal with it. Yea, if everyone did it, bullies would be ostracized. Actually,if everyone did it, there wouldn't be bullies, so if the majority did it then yes, bullies would be ostracized. This is ok with me.

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